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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27828937">i sent a message to your memory last night</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingsquake/pseuds/seekingsquake'>seekingsquake</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Discord: Umino Hours, Gen, Umino Hours Winter Bingo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:27:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,185</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27828937</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingsquake/pseuds/seekingsquake</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> “Iruka-sensei?”</i>
</p><p>  <i>Hatake Kakashi is the last person that Iruka would expect to run across at this time of night, if only because Hatake Kakashi never interacts with anyone unless he wants to. But the old Hatake estate is right across the street from where Iruka’s family had lived, and Iruka had just recently heard a rumour that Kakashi may have moved back in there. </i></p><p>  <i>“What are you doing?”</i></p><p>  <i>“I’m making an angel,” Iruka responds, and even he can tell that he doesn’t quite sound like himself, “because I miss my mother.”</i></p><p>When Iruka can't sleep, he lays down in the snow.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hatake Kakashi &amp; Umino Iruka</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>The Umino Hours Winter Bingo 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>i sent a message to your memory last night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thanks to the lovely <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/enby0angel">Enby</a> for beta reading this &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>Iruka lays in the snow and flaps his limbs, his snowsuit so puffy that his range of movement is limited. Snowflakes fall into his eyes and mouth, and he shrieks with laughter.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Like this,” his mother says, getting his attention, and when he turns to look at her she’s lying in the snow, too. She opens and closes her legs, making a triangle in the snow, and moves her arms up and down, making triangles beside her. She stands up carefully, then plucks Iruka up too. “See? It’s an angel.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I try?” Iruka asks, voice muffled by the scarf his father had tied around his neck and the bottom of his face.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>His mother puts him down in an untouched patch of snow on the other side of her angel impression. She helps him keep his feet down as he moves his legs, and she draws a circle above his head with her finger and he waves his arms. When he’s done she picks him up again. “Look! You did it!” </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Kohari?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>She turns toward the house and the sound of the voice, Iruka still in her arms. “Say hi to Sakumo-san, Iruka,” she whispers to him.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Hi, ‘Kumo-sa!” Iruka calls, his scarf making his words indistinguishable. He flaps his arms happily at his mother’s teammate.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Sakumo waves at him. “Hi, Iruka-kun!” Then, using his other hand, he waves a scroll at Iruka’s mother. “You’ll like this one this time, Kohari, I promise.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>She carries Iruka to the house and puts him down on the patio, then takes the scroll from Sakumo and opens it. Her mouth turns into a thin line, and Iruka frowns at her because he knows what that means. “Mama go ‘way?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Sorry kiddo,” she says as she bends down to kiss the top of his head. “Papa will stay here with you. Be a good boy, okay?” Then she stands back up. She presses the scroll into Sakumo’s hands, then pats his arm. “I’ll grab my gear. Gimme a sec.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>When she ducks inside, Iruka and Sakumo are left standing on the patio. “Look,” Iruka says, pointing out into the yard. “We made angels!”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Sakumo drops his hand onto Iruka’s head, and it’s huge and warm. He tousles Iruka’s hair but doesn’t say anything.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>❆❆❆</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Iruka wakes suddenly in the middle of the night with a heavy feeling in his chest and sweat at the base of his neck. When he looks out the window, snow is falling gently. He feels restless and almost unbearably sad, so he gets out of bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Over the years he’d ended up giving the majority of his good snow gear to Naruto, but he still has a down coat, a knit cap, and a pair of gloves pushed to the back of his closet. He gets dressed and heads outside then roams aimlessly around the village.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s never completely still in a shinobi village; Iruka passes a couple of his comrades on patrol and crosses paths with a team just getting back from a mission. A handful of shops are open overnight, and their neon lights cast eerie colours onto the snow at their entries. He’s not got a destination in mind and he isn’t paying much attention to where his feet are taking him; he’s mostly repeating a calming mantra to himself and focusing on breathing exercises, so it’s a surprise when he stops and finds himself standing at the spot that his family home once stood before Kyuubi had destroyed it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His heart beats, and Iruka takes a deep breath. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The snow falls around him, and everything is quiet enough that he can hear the flakes fall on top of each other. The sky is an inky black, and the ground almost glows in the moonlight. Iruka steps forward, onto the plot, and crosses over where the garden gate used to be. His footprints are the only thing breaking the perfect layer of snow that’s fallen— not even animals tread here anymore. Iruka closes his eyes against the feeling of forming tears and blindly lets his feet lead, muscle memory taking him down the path around where the house stood to the backyard. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In his mind, he can see where the vegetable patch and the evergreen shrubs used to be. For some reason, it’s that memory that brings him to his knees. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can’t remember the sound of his father’s voice anymore, but he knows exactly what the garden looked like.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He feels the snow melting under his body and seeping through his pants, but he’s got no room in his brain to care. He lays in the snow and rolls onto his back, and as he looks up at the sky he feels like he’s staring into the chasm of time. He feels twenty-five and tired, permanently in mourning, perpetually exhausted. He feels five and desperate for attention, for fun, for new and exciting things to happen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His limbs start making triangles in the snow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Iruka-sensei?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hatake Kakashi is the last person that Iruka would expect to run across at this time of night, if only because Hatake Kakashi never interacts with anyone unless he wants to. But the old Hatake estate is right across the street from where Iruka’s family had lived, and Iruka had just recently heard a rumour that Kakashi may have moved back in there. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you doing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m making an angel,” Iruka responds, and even he can tell that he doesn’t quite sound like himself, “because I miss my mother.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kakashi doesn’t say anything, but there must be something in the air tonight because, between one breath and the next, Kakashi is laying in the snow beside him. “I’ve never done this before,” he says as he, too, starts making a snow angel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Iruka stops, his arms splayed out beside him, and as Kakashi moves his arms to make the wings, their fingers just barely brush.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did anyone ever tell you that after your father... passed... my mother petitioned the council to adopt you, Kakashi-san?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kakashi freezes beside him, and his voice is little more than a whisper when he says, “What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They wouldn’t let her,” Iruka says, eyes focused on a single star in the middle of his field of vision, “because you were already a chuunin. But.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The silence between them is deafening. Iruka tries to focus on his breath but ends up just listening to the sound of the falling snow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you think of her when you look at me?” Kakashi asks, and the tension is enough to make anyone ill at ease. But Iruka can’t feel anything except the snow falling and melting on his skin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sometimes,” he admits softly. “I wonder how different things might have been if we hadn’t been alone. We were just children, weren’t we? And then we weren’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And then we weren’t,” Kakashi echoes. “I might have enjoyed having a mother.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s cold enough that if Iruka cries, the tears would freeze to his face. So he bites his tongue, and he looks at that one star, and he lets his fingertips brush against Kakashi’s fingertips. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This piece fills the "snow angels" square on my bingo board.</p><p> </p><p>  </p></blockquote></div></div>
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